


Love and Healing

by Shatterpath



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Children, Curtain Fic, F/F, Mother's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot of a lifetime of love and healing.</p>
<p>(Author notes: One of my favorite AUs!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Giftee: Vanya
> 
> Spoilers: No, but this is an AU that splits off after the curse breaks.  
> Warnings: Beware warm fuzzies! Run for your lives!!!!  
> Disclaimer: "Once Upon a Time," the characters, and situations depicted are the property of Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis, Kitsis/Horowitz, and ABC Studios. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. This site is in no way affiliated with "Once Upon a Time," ABC, or any representatives of the actors.
> 
> Notes: This piece was written as a moderator gift and was inspired by the prompt (per recipient): Maybe some about Regina and Emma living in house full of children (all theirs) twenty years after their wedding. Henry is not there. he lives in NYC, for example, and comes to visit.

Emma had never expected herself to be the introspective sort, but it came more and more often with age it seemed. So many memories crowded in on her sometimes, it was a wonder she didn't have two personalities like everyone else in Storybrooke when the curse broke.

So many days that whole weird scenario still seemed like a bizarre fever dream.

Half of Storybrooke had bailed back to the Enchanted Forest the moment Regina and Emma had figured out how to open the thin place between worlds deep in the mines and caves. A good third of that had come back and traffic between had become commonplace. A carefully built spell to replace the original curse had done a near-perfect job of both hiding and integrating the small town in Maine that shouldn't exist at all. Henry had dubbed it the 'Boring Spell'. It caused a distinct lack of curiosity about all things related to Storybrooke. Hiding in plain sight as it were. Artists and recluses seemed to find them at a constant slow trickle, a haven from a world that technology and overcrowding that made everyone claustrophobic. 

Even the internet and the IRS constantly overlooked them. It was nice.

"Come on, Mama," Rose yelled from the side yard. "Before Mom murders you for running late."

"Coming, coming," Emma muttered and Grady chuckled as he climbed out of the driver's seat and came around to give her a hand. While the triplets had been a shock, Grady had been planned, as had his younger brother and sister. The big house on Mifflin Street had not been quiet in a very long time.

The egg-yolk yellow siding and leaf-green shutters had started out when Regina lost a bet with the then six-year-old triplets. Now they were all used to it and the stark white and dark green were a faded memory. The brick walkway had been ripped up and redone not once, but twice and the ramshackle treehouse that had somehow lasted nearly ten years had scarred the massive oak for life. 

All of it memories Emma cherished.

Grady galloped into the house with all the energy of a well-built seventeen-year-old, hollering for his mom. The children were all dark-haired like their mom, though they would bleach out into pale streaks with the kiss of the sun. All were uniformly dark-eyed, brown and green like water over stones. And every one of them even more beautiful than their mothers. Even Jason, who at twelve, seemed to be determined to be as sloppy and sulky as every tweeny cliché dictated. His twin was disgusted with him constantly now. Well, really, Jessie was pretty much disgusted with everything for now. Emma and Regina just kept reminding themselves that the youngest would grow out of it. They'd had plenty of practice over decades.

The interior of the big house looked remarkably similar to the first time Emma had stepped in all those years ago. Oh, the paint was a slightly different shade and the intricate woodwork showed the dings and cracks of six children and lots of friends and family, but the biggest difference was the pictures. Over every vertical surface, they spelled out a good, strong life that two badly damaged souls had managed to build. It bordered on tacky, the endless frames containing memories, but somehow Regina's impeccable taste made it work. When she was bored or upset, everyone in the house knew it, because she would start redoing the frames. They all knew to leave her the hell alone until she was satisfied. One only had to get chewed out once for interrupting her. 

"Chrys," Emma called out as one of the triplets came into the kitchen. "Where's your mom?"

With a smile and roll of the eyes, she gestured upward with her chin, her hands full. "Lying down. We made Henry drag her up there when she started getting cranky. Me and Mags got you covered, Mama, and you know Rose is every bit as good a hostess as Mom. Henry's got the kids and cousins and sibs rounded up into a soccer game and Gran's got pool duty. So we're good. We'll see you guys when Mom's feeling better."

"Thanks, Sweetie."

Leaving the Mother's Day festivities in the hands of the capable children, Emma headed up the curving stairs, ever tread as familiar as her own skin and breath. Endless times she had tracked these steps, chasing her lovely wife, carrying sick or sleeping children, moving furniture and all the minutiae of her life within these walls. Around the great sweep of balcony that corralled in the luxurious chandelier-- really it was amazing that Tarzan impersonation hadn't killed it or Maggie back in the day-- past all of the rooms full of memories and down to the door that contained her life with her once-enemy that she had come to love so dearly.

The lights were off and the windows to the side yard closed to cut down on the pleasant noise from outside. Ah, a migraine then. Regina had suffered from them ever since the curse broke, as though that massive outpouring of magic had damaged her somehow when it came apart at the seams. Only Emma had any effect on the bouts of pain, for the way their magics had always blended soothed them both. 

"Hey," she murmured and the figure on the bed stirred sleepily.

"Emma," Regina whispered softly, her voice a vulnerable tremble only Emma ever got to hear. "You're home."

It was spoken like benediction, a reinforcement of a love that had saved them both. Even more than twenty years of knowing one another had not lessened the impact they always made on one another. With a gentleness her younger self could have never understood, that being part of a family had taught her, Emma went to the bed and cupped Regina's skull in her calloused hands to press kisses to the beloved face and feel the blending of the sorcerous power within them both.

"I love you," she spoke softly and calmly, soothing her mate, her heart, the truest love she'd made outside of the children they shared. A long, tremulous sigh just the good side of a sob escaped on Regina's breath, for she had never grown weary of the wonder those simple words caused.

"I love you too."

With a loving kiss, Emma toed off her shoes and carefully climbed over Regina to cradle the smaller woman close and pet the still dark hair. They had both softened with age, both in their fifties now, slowed down only by the irregular headaches and Emma's failing eyesight. Regina still rabidly chased down every little hair that dared go gray with dye or tweezers and Emma learned to live with the world slowly going unfocused as time marched on. Together they were bigger than the things that tried to slow them down, a force of nature that had started the very first time they met, never suspecting what they would become.

Stroking the silky hair and tracing around a closed eye, Emma marveled at how lightly time sat on Regina, how little effect it had made on her beauty, how it had soothed her shattered soul. The same was reflected on her, their two halves all the stronger as a whole.

"Happy to be here with you."

A smile crept over Emma's face at Regina's slurred words, sleep overtaking her once more, her body at ease now in her lover's embrace. No one would hold a nap against them and to the sounds of laughter and love and family drifting through the windows that faced familiar Mifflin Street, could find comfort in one another again.

**Author's Note:**

> Rose, Maggie (Magnolia), Chrys (chrysanthemum) 19- Grady 17- Jessie and Jason 12


End file.
